[Majorityrights News] Trump will ‘arm Ukraine to the teeth’ if Putin won’t negotiate ceasefire Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 12 November 2024 16:20.
[Majorityrights News] Alex Navalny, born 4th June, 1976; died at Yamalo-Nenets penitentiary 16th February, 2024 Posted by Guessedworker on Friday, 16 February 2024 23:43.
[Majorityrights Central] A couple of exchanges on the nature and meaning of Christianity’s origin Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 25 July 2023 22:19.
[Majorityrights News] Is the Ukrainian counter-offensive for Bakhmut the counter-offensive for Ukraine? Posted by Guessedworker on Thursday, 18 May 2023 18:55.
Posted by DanielS on Thursday, 04 August 2016 16:26.
“It was the result of ‘mental health issues’, and a spontaneous attack, victims selected at random - no indication of radicalization or terrorist motivation”....no racial motives. The significance of the incident’s location was ignored.
The attack occurred in the late Joe Cox’s district
Courtesy Jez Turner: Breaking! Somali stabbed people at the site of the makeshift memorial to Jo Cox!
Placards, cards, flowers and messages to Jo Cox adorned the railings at this (south-east) corner of Russell Square. I walked past on Saturday night and counted about 20 or so items tied to the railings by the entrance to the gardens here with one big one saying ‘‘Jo Cox not forgotten’‘, and even late at night tourists would stop and read them. Look at the map of the incident on this BBC article! - Jez Turner
LONDON (AP) — A Norwegian-Somali teenager went on a knife rampage through London’s Russell Square, a hub for students and tourists, fatally stabbing an American woman and injuring five other people.
Police said Thursday that it wasn’t terrorism — but in a city on edge after a summer of attacks elsewhere in Europe, both authorities and London residents initially responded as if it were. Police flooded the streets with extra officers and mobilized counterterror detectives before saying the shocking burst of violence appeared to have been “triggered by mental-health issues.”
Police officers used a stun gun to subdue the 19-year-old suspect at the scene of the stabbings late Wednesday, among busy streets lined with hotels close to the British Museum.
“Terror in London” ran the headline in the Mail Online, one of several media outlets to speculate that the attack was an act of terrorism. Police initially said terrorism was “one line of inquiry being explored.”
But hours later Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Mark Rowley said “we have found no evidence of radicalization or anything that would suggest the man in our custody was in any way motivated by terrorism.”
He said detectives from the force’s murder and terrorism squads had interviewed the suspect, his family and witnesses and searched properties.
“We believe this was a spontaneous attack and the victims were selected at random,” Rowley said.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said “there is no evidence at all that this man was motivated by Daesh” — another name for the Islamic State group — or similar organizations.
Rowley said the suspect, whose name hasn’t been released, is a Norwegian of Somali ancestry — though police don’t consider that “relevant to the motivation for his actions.” Norway’s National Criminal Investigation Service said he had left the Scandinavian country in 2002, when he was a small child.
The name of the dead woman, thought to be in her 60s, hasn’t been released. U.S. Ambassador Matthew Barzun confirmed she was American, tweeting: “Heartbreaking news that a U.S. citizen was killed in #RussellSquare attack. My prayers are with all the victims and their loved ones.”
Two Australians, an Israeli, an American and a British citizen were wounded, none with life-threatening injuries.
While knife crime is a regular occurrence in London — there have been two other blade killings this week — the scale and randomness of the rampage rattled nerves. It came just days after authorities warned the British public to be vigilant in light of attacks inspired by the Islamic State group elsewhere in Europe.
Student Megan Sharrock, 18, looked out her window and saw someone lying on the sidewalk under a blanket.
“There was like two rivers of blood running away from the person so we thought, yeah, someone has been killed,” she said.
“It’s really shocking, (a) scary world we live in to think that could happen,” she said. “That could happen to anyone, just walking down the street.”
Helen Edwards, 33, who lives in the area, came out for a walk and found it thronging with armed police near. In a city with vivid memories of the deadly July 7, 2005, bomb attacks on public transport — two of which struck near Russell Square — she immediately suspected that an attack had occurred.
“There is always that thing in the back of your mind,” she said. “You live with that threat of terrorism or other crimes in the back of your mind. It wasn’t a huge shock I guess.”
The response to the attack is complicated by the frequent overlap between terrorism and mental illness. Many “lone wolf” attackers have a history of mental-health problems, including a Syrian who blew himself up in the German town of Ansbach last month and a Somali man who was sentenced to life this week for trying to behead a London Underground passenger.
Emily Corner, a researcher at University College London who studies the links between mental illness and terrorism, said every incident of major violence now sparks the same debate: “Are they a terrorist or are they mentally ill?” In some cases, the answer is both, though Corner stresses that most terrorist attackers are not mentally ill, and most people with mental illness are not violent.
The Russell Square attack came within hours of an announcement by London police that they were putting more armed officers on the streets to bolster public confidence in the wake of recent attacks in Europe.
The men arrived during morning mass in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray, a working-class town near Rouen, northwest of Paris, where the 85-year-old parish priest, Father Jacques Hamel, was leading prayers
Knife-wielding attackers interrupted a French church service, forced the priest to his knees and slit his throat on Tuesday, a murder made even more shocking as one of the assailants was a known would-be jihadist under supposedly tight surveillance.
Church in St. Etienne
As the attackers came out of the church shouting “Allahu akbar” (“God is Greatest”) they were shot and killed by police..
“They forced him to his knees and he tried to defend himself and that’s when the drama began,” Sister Danielle, who escaped as the attackers slayed the priest, told RMC radio.
“They filmed themselves. It was like a sermon in Arabic around the altar,” the nun said.
Three other worshippers were held hostage until the assailants were killed, one of them was badly wounded during the attack.
Breitbart, “Black Lives Matter Protesters Torch French Town” 25 July 2016:
Multiple Black Lives Matter protesters have been arrested in France after demonstrations against the death of a Malian man in police custody left Beaumont-sur-Oise and other nearby towns in flames. Of those arrested, some are being charged with throwing incendiary objects at security forces and others for “trying to burn down” their towns.
Despite a huge police presence, Saturday marked a fifth night of violence in the Val d’Oise district after the death of Adama Traoré in police custody on Tuesday. During demonstrations against Mr. Traoré’s death, protesters, some wielding baseball bats, torched cars, petrol pumps, bins, and piles of rubbish. Buildings were also set alight, including a large warehouse in Persan, near Beaumont-sur-Oise.
DM, “Syrian refugee, 21, hacks PREGNANT woman to death with machete and injures two others before hero BMW driver runs him over in yet another attack in Germany”,,
- Syrian refugee, aged 21, went on a machete rampage in the city Reutlingen, Germany near to a doner kebab stand
- He killed one woman and injured a man and another woman in the attack before being detained by the police
- The motive for the attack is unclear but it has been reported he had a dispute with the woman before he killed her
A Syrian refugee wielding a machete has killed a pregnant woman and injured a man and another woman in Germany before being arrested by police after he was run over by a man driving a BMW.
The attack happened in the south western city of Reutlingen near a doner kebab stand in a bus station at Listplatz Square in what has been described as a ‘crime of passion’.
German media have been reporting that the motive for the attack in the city south of Stuttgart was unclear but the attacker and the 45-year-old Polish victim both worked at the same snack bar.
Forward, “5 Reasons Tim Kaine Will Be the Jewiest Vice President Pick for Hillary Clinton,” 22 July 2016:
Tim Kaine is Hillary Clinton’s pick for Vice President, somewhat to the chagrin of the Democratic Party’s left wing and the — somewhat premature — excitement of Wikipedia. He has one of the longest records of service in politics among the people on Clinton’s shortlist, going back to his 1997 election as the mayor of Richmond, Virginia.
Kaine has also been a friend to the Jewish community for about as long as he’s been in public service. During his various campaigns, Kaine has repeatedly reached out to the Jewish community, conducted interviews with Jewish leaders and spoken about America’s relationship with Israel.
“He made himself very available to the Jewish community,” said Ron Halber, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington. “He took the Jewish community very seriously as a constituency,” even though it only represented a small portion of the Virginia electorate.
But Kaine is connected to the Jewish community in several other ways, as well. Here are five facts about Tim Kaine’s relationship to Judaism and Israel.
1. He supports a two-state solution even when others don’t.
Kaine is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East, Central Asia and terrorism, and held the chairmanship of the committee for two years. In March, he signed a letter, along with twenty-six other senators, urging President Obama to continue his support for the two-state solution. His predecessor as chairman of the subcommittee on the Middle East and terrorism, Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, didn’t sign the letter.
Kaine’s decision to skip Bibi Netanyahu’s speech in Congress in March 2015 was also widely noticed throughout Washington. It was a clear message: Kaine did not agree with the timing of the talk, and Netanyahu’s perceived political motivations for delivering it before the Israeli elections.
“I’m not dumb, I knew not going to the speech might make some folks mad with me — there would be a political price, but I felt so strongly as a matter of principle that this was done in an entirely inappropriate way,” Kaine told the Forward.
Ron Halber, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, said that it would be “a foolish mistake” to interpret Kaine’s move as being in any way unsupportive of Israel.
“He is keenly aware of the security challenges” in the region, Halber said.
2. He’s a religious Catholic, so he understands the imperatives, and difficulties, of observance.
Kaine is a dedicated, practicing Catholic who represents the Democratic party at the Senate’s weekly prayer breakfast on Wednesdays. He is also a member of a “reflection group,” along with six other senators, that holds faith-centered discussions. Though he does not personally agree with abortion, he sees a woman’s right to make decisions about her body as an important right, and does not support anti-abortion legislation. As a Catholic he’s used to being viewed as an outsider by white Protestants.
When Kaine found himself living in D.C., away from his wife, he decided to write a bible commentary on weeknights.
“He could’ve chosen to find other ways to address his loneliness that were either chemical or social in nature,” said Rabbi Jack Moline, the executive director of the Interfaith Alliance. “But he spotted the opportunity for deeper social reflection into a piece of scripture that particularly spoke to him.”
3. He brought hummus to Virginia.
During his time as the governor of Virginia, Sabra built the what is reportedly the world’s largest hummus factory outside Richmond, capable of producing 8,000 tons of hummus a month. Kaine was apparently directly involved.
“He’s the man who brought Sabra hummus to Virginia,” said Rabbi Jack Moline, the Executive Director of Interfaith Alliance. According to Moline, Kaine “wooed” the company to set up shop in his state.
Kaine authorized $350,000 from the Governor’s Opportunity Fund to help bring the project to fruition, beating out two other states for the privilege of being at the heart of American hummus production.
4. He’s hosted a Passover Seder — multiple times.
In 2006, during his first year as governor of Virginia, he hosted the first ever Passover Seder in the governor’s mansion. He is apparently part of a group of friends that rotates hosting the Seder each year, and that year it happened to be his turn. It also wasn’t his first time hosting — his home had been a slot in the rotating group for several years before his election.
5. He played “Yente,” matchmaking for Rabbi Jack Moline’s daughter.
Moline’s daughter and son-in-law met while working on Kaine’s campaign for governor of Virginia in 2005.
“If he hadn’t run for governor, I wouldn’t be a grandfather,” said Moline.
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton announced her vice-presidential running mate by text to supporters today. She will unveil U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, formally tomorrow.
Virginia’s Kaine is a centrist pro-Israel choice who should please moderate Jewish voters as Hillary’s No. 2.
“He’s not going to appeal to the Bernie Sanders voters. He’s a centrist,” Ron Halber, executive director of the Greater Washington JCRC, told the Forward. Halber has forged a relationship with Kaine both as governor and as senator.
Kaine might offer some ammunition to Israel hawks as an early endorser of the Iranian nuclear deal, and like her he chose to skip Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress.
5 Questions for Tim Kaine on Israel
But as a middle-of-the-road-Democrat and a co-sponsor of Iran-related legislation, Kaine made choices that, when it came to the nuclear deal, drew attention in the pro-Israel community.
“I’m not dumb, I knew not going to the speech might make some folks mad with me — there would be a political price,” Kaine told the Forward shortly after. “But I felt so strongly as a matter of principle that this was done in an entirely inappropriate way.”
Kaine, who has also served as head of the Democratic National Committee, has visited Israel several times and has supported the funding of Iron Dome systems and the U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Act. Halber noted that he was a “very good friend” of the U.S.-Israel partnership, but he added that if chosen as vice president, he may want to see movement on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. “His social background and his sympathy to the oppressed will likely make him want to see a solution,” he said, “but he will also support defending Israel in the U.N. and expanding the relationship.”
Kaine is a member of a small group of senators who participate in a biweekly reflection group organized by the Faith and Politics Institute.
“I had many, many personal deep conversations with him, and he is genuinely a friend of Israel,” said Rabbi Jack Moline, one of the group’s moderators. Moline believes that much of Kaine’s worldview was shaped during his work as a Jesuit missionary in Honduras. “It had an immense influence on his understanding of the need to make the world a better place.”
In Virginia, Kaine hosted the first Passover Seder in the governor’s mansion.
Before entering the U.S. Senate the well-liked Kaine had been the mayor of Richmond, governor of Virginia and chairman of the Democratic National Committee.
Kaine, 58, is a fluent Spanish speaker after serving as a missionary in Honduras, and his presence on the ticket could help Clinton in Virginia, a heavily contested swing state.
Another senator, Cory Booker of New Jersey, along with Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack were among the final contenders.
The announcement had been expected. The Wall Street Journal, citing Democrats familiar with the search, had said she was likely to make the announcement on Friday and Kaine was believed to be the pick.
Clinton, a former secretary of state, will be formally nominated as the party’s presidential candidate at next week’s Democratic convention in Philadelphia. Her choice of Kaine as running mate could provide an early signal about her plan of battle against Trump.
Picking Kaine, a veteran mainstay of the Democratic establishment with plenty of governing experience, emphasizes her message that Democrats will offer a serious, steady alternative to the unpredictable Trump after the chaotic Republican convention that closed on Thursday.
Booker, a charismatic rising star in the party, would have given her candidacy a jolt of energy as Clinton enters the three-month grind of the general election. Booker, 47, would have been the first black vice president and his help might still be vital to boost turnout among young and African-American voters.
Other potential contenders on Clinton’s short list included U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a liberal favorite, Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper and Hispanic Cabinet members Julian Castro and Thomas Perez.—With Reuters
This article was updated at 8pm EST to reflect Hillary Clinton’s announcement of her running mate.
Posted by DanielS on Wednesday, 20 July 2016 16:18.
Day of the Jackals in Mr. Hyde’s Park
New Observer, “African Mayhem in Central London”, 20 July 2016:
At least 4,000 Africans chanting “black lives matter” and other anti-white racial epithets rioted in London’s famous Hyde Park last night. Several blacks were stabbed, at least five police officers were injured, and a supermarket was ransacked.
The Africans were only halted in their mayhem by rigorous police action in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
According to the Metro newspaper, the violence erupted as the “spontaneous event” disrupted into chaos. Video footage showed Africans chasing people with knives “through the busy streets of London.”
The large crowd of Africans gathered in the park as Britain experienced its hottest day of the year, with temperatures reaching 90 degrees Fahrenheit (33 degrees Celsius). As the crowd grew ever larger—spurred on by social media—the Africans turned “hostile towards officers,” the Metro said in an understatement.
“People were heard chanting ‘black lives matter’ throughout the evening as more people arrived.”
Two people who were not identified by police were stabbed when “violence flared” at around 8.40 p.m. Police said both were taken to the hospital where one received treatment for nonlife-threatening injuries. The condition of the second victim is not known.
Police units moved in to disperse the crowds and the operation lasted into the early hours of Wednesday morning, the Metro concluded.
BBC: Three people were stabbed, including one police officer.
Elsewhere in London, officers were pelted with missiles as they tried to break up an illegal street party on the Stamford Hill estate in Hackney, north London.
Another water fight in Burgess Park in Camberwell, south-east London, saw the crowd grow to about 1,500 people, police said.
Two 16-year-old boys were stabbed - neither suffered life-threatening injuries but one remains in hospital.
Some Polish and other EU companies are adopting the right wing anti-labor strategy that Russia has been notorious for deploying: Forced North Korean labor
EU – The NGO European Alliance for Human Rights in North Korea (EAHRNK) reported that companies are employing North Korean workers in a semi-legal way – see their report about the Polish case. Their salaries go directly to fuel Kim Jong-un’s regime.
The death of Chŏn Kyŏngsu in 2014, a North Korean who worked on a Polish shipyard, the Crist Shipyards in Gdynia, contributed to start the investigation of the EAHRNK. The man worked 12 hours a day, 6 days per week. His salary was the minimum to survive and the only trip he was authorized to do was to go to work and go back home. Still according to the NGO, these conditions are imposed by Kim Jong-un and are systematic for the North Koreans that work in a foreign country. Chŏn Kyŏngsu was never given an employment contract. Chŏn Kyŏngsu burnt as he was welding pipelines, a Polish colleague helped him and he went to a hospital with 95% of severe burns over his body. The body was sent back to his family in North Korea with 637 EUR.
The work permits that are delivered are totally legal, but the work conditions aren’t. The North Korean embassy in Warsaw said that nobody was taking their salaries. But a worker said anonymously to the EAHRNK that “a manager told us that foreign companies employ us because we cost no money, and that they cut the price for the trip, gas, electricity, from our salaries. They never told us how much we were paid.” Also, the ambassy took their passports, and give them back only for exceptional situations, to go to the hospital for example.
According to another testimony, to work in a foreign country, North Koreans have to be married and their wife and children to stay in North Korea, so the country keeps the control upon them. NGOs estimate that, only in Poland, there are between 500 and 800 North Koreans working, mostly employed at shipyards and constructions sites. Also, in Poland, “there are no distinctions between nationalities and categories of workers, meaning that there are no extra procedures required for North Korean citizens” say Jacqueline Sanchez-Pyrcz, director of the Department of Foreigners at the Masovian Voivodeship in Warsaw. So the system is authorized by Polish law. North Korean workers are employed in many other European countries, such as Malta, Czechia, …
On the 6 July, the United States imposed penalties for serious violations of human rights on North korea. For the first time Kim Jong-un was directly affected by these economic sanctions. According to Remco Breuker, a professor of Korean studies at the University of Leiden : “What is going on in Malta and Poland directly contravenes national and EU laws, as well as international treaties, such as that of the ILO. It also defies the sanctions against North Korea set by the UN and the EU, although it is debatable to what extent. All things considered, there should be enough reason for the EU to take an interest in the topic, but so far, this has not happened.”
Poland, Warsaw – “Poland will be sending another contingent to support Hungary’s border protection system”, Polish Minister of Interior Mariusz Błaszczak announced following a meeting of Visegrád Group (V4) Interior Ministers in Warsaw.
In addition to the hosting Polish Minister, the meeting was also attended by Hungarian Interior Minister Sándor Pintér, Slovakian Minister of Interior Robert Kalinák and Czech Deputy Interior Minister Jiri Novácek.
At the press conference following the meeting, Mr. Pintér said: Hungary turned to its Visegrád partners for assistance “in the interests of the implementation and international enforcement” of its new border protection system, which came into force in the beginning of July. Hungary will not only be receiving support from the V4; it is hoped that Thursday’s visits by the Austrian Minister of Defence and Minister of Interior will also have a similar result, he pointed out. Thanking his Visegrád colleagues for the assistance they have provided to Hungary so far to protect its Schengen borders, Mr. Pintér said “This has helped us allow significantly fewer illegal immigrants to reach the Schengen Area”.
Poland, satisfied with the decisions taken regarding the eastern flank of the Alliance, announced a few weeks before the summit in Warsaw her intention to participate to the defense of the southern flank and in particular the fight against the Islamic Stateby sending in Iraq and in Kuwait 200 men and four F-16 aircraft for observation missions and training of Iraqi units. Warsaw also wants to intensify its military effort to not have to rely on its allies by setting a target to get its investment in the defense from currently less than 2% of GDP to 2% in the short term and to 3 % in the long term. For comparison, Russia, which has an economy worth about four times that of Poland, spends nearly 4.5% of its GDP on its military machine
The summit held in Warsaw early July brings the first results: Slovakia will be in charge of a NATO trust fund to be used for the removal of explosives, ammunition and for demining.
According to the Slovak President, over 600 people were killed and 2,000 were wounded in Ukraine since the current conflict erupted as a result of explosions of various obsolete explosives. Slovakia has provided training to dozens of Ukrainian specialists between 2014 and 2015.
The attack occurred in the late Joe Cox’s district
“Tim Kaine Will Be the Jewiest Vice President”
Church in St. Etienne
